Adele interview stuff up: nine other famous on-air interview blunders

Channel 7 reporter Matt Doran made headlines over the weekend for a car crash interview with British singer Adele during which he revealed he had not listened to her highly anticipated new album, 30.

The “mortified” journalist has since explained he had been “totally unaware” he had been sent a preview of her album. Doran and a crew were flown to London specifically for the interview, which was reportedly part of a $1 million deal.

Related: Adele interview bungle leaves Australian TV reporter ‘mortified’

Doran has faced significant backlash from a host of media commentators for the bungle, but he isn’t the first reporter to get into strife over an on-camera stuff-up. Guardian Australia staff share the most epic interview fails they’ve witnessed over the years:

‘The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop’

It seems unbelievable it’s now a decade since Today show host Karl Stefanovic attempted a dad joke with the Dalai Lama that proved to be horribly lost in translation.

“The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and says, can you make me ‘one with everything’… do you know what I mean?” Stefanovic opens, leaning close to a bemused Dalai Lama.

Clutching his hands together as if in prayer, he repeats “one with everything”, waving said prayer hands before chuckling and conceding “I knew that wouldn’t work.”

It’s one of Stefanovic’s most infamous moments, and that’s saying something.

Molly Meldrum’s royal stuff-up

Who could forget former Countdown host Molly Meldrum’s uncomfortable interview with Prince Charles, which began with Meldrum lamenting “I’m sweating like a pig” and only got worse from there?

The train-wreck 1977 interview has since been roasted by His Royal Highness himself.

On the 40th anniversary of the program, Prince Charles released a video, saying deadpan: “there is an old show business saying which warns never to work with animals or children but nobody prepared me for Molly Meldrum”.

“Was it really 40 years ago? It seems like yesterday … I wish it were tomorrow, I’d cancel it.”

‘I don’t know Jeff’

In what has gone down in history as one of the most innocently charming moments in sports broadcasting, Sky Sports football reporter Chris Kamara was possibly one of the only journalists told to “get your fingers out” live on air after missing a red card on the pitch.

In a memorable Soccer Saturday report, Kamara was crossed to for an update on a Portsmouth v Blackburn game, where he somehow completely missed Anthony Vanden Borre’s second yellow card and subsequent dismissal.

“We’re off to Fratton Park where there’s been a red card, but for who Kamara?” reporter Jeff Stelling opens.

“I don’t know Jeff, has there?” he blunders bemusedly. “I must have missed that … I saw him go off but I thought they were bringing a sub on, Jeff.”

‘How will she fit into the office lift?’

Other mistakes aren’t so harmless. Australian website Mamamia was forced to issue an apology to US author Roxanne Gay after releasing a podcast interview which included text questioning whether she would “fit into the office lift”.

A description posted to Mamamia’s No Filter podcast detailed the extensive preparations the website claimed to have made to accommodate the author, including: “will she fit into the office lift? How many steps will she have to take to get to the interview? Is there a comfortable chair that will accommodate her six-foot-three, ‘super-morbidly obese’ frame?”

Gay, who at the time was promoting her book Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, said she was “appalled” after the interview she gave with the site’s co-founder Mia Freedman.

“It was a shit show. I can walk a fucking mile,” she said. “‘Can she fit into the lift?’ Shame on you Mamamia.”

From job interview to live TV

In a true comedy of errors, unemployed computer technician Guy Goma was surprised to find himself live on-air after arriving for a job interview at the BBC.

Goma was mistaken for music industry expert Guy “Kewney” at reception, and somehow wound up all the way to the broadcasting studio.

The moment he realises the mistake (0.25 seconds in) is truly unforgettable, but, like a champion, Goma goes on to answer the questions as if an expert, even making his own predictions as to how people’s online listening habits will evolve. Sadly, Goma did not get the job, but he did win our hearts.

‘Smitten’ with Jacinda Ardern

Some of the worst stuff-ups are the ones in which the journalist appears to lack any self-awareness for them.

A 60 Minutes interview with the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, and her partner was labelled “sexist” and “creepy” after veteran reporter Charles Wooley said he was “smitten” with the “attractive” prime minister and then proceeded to speculate on the date her baby was conceived.

Related: Jacinda Ardern's 'sexist, creepy' 60 Minutes interview angers New Zealand

“It’s interesting how much people have been counting back … to … the conception as it were,” he says to the visibly uncomfortable couple.

“Why shouldn’t a child be conceived during an election campaign?”

‘You’re the entertainment reporter?’

You would think having a reasonable grasp on who it is you’re interviewing is relatively straightforward, but not so for US entertainment reporter Sam Rubin.

Rubin was subject to a Samuel L Jackson blast when he confused Jackson, who was promoting his latest film Robocop, with the actor Laurence Fishburne live on-air.

“The Superbowl commercial, did you get a lot of reaction for that Superbowl commercial?” Rubin asks eagerly.

“What Superbowl commercial?” Jackson replies, to Rubin’s visibly shocked face.

“You’re as crazy as the people on Twitter … I’m not Laurence Fishburne. We don’t all look alike. We might be black and famous, but we don’t all look alike. You’re the entertainment reporter?” Jackson cries.

“There must be a very short line for your job out there.”

Ireland’s currency ‘too confusing’

There is perhaps nothing more charming than watching IDA Ireland CEO Martin Shanahan patiently explain his nation’s currency to a completely flummoxed desk of Americans.

Asked by a CNBC reporter what the weaker euro has meant for tourism, Shanahan begins to answer the question before another reporter interjects: “you have pounds anyway, don’t you still?”.

“We have euros,” he replies, to which the reporter follows up: “why would you have euros in Ireland?”

Shanahan attempts to explain that, despite Ireland’s proximity to the UK, they are not, in fact, the same country, until the journalist sighs “that’s just too confusing.”

‘Wrap it up!’

In what has been hailed by many as the most cringe-worthy interview of all time, BBC journalist Michael Parkinson this year offered an apology for a deeply awkward 2003 exchange with actor Meg Ryan.

The interview, which dives into an increasingly uncomfortable line of questioning, sees Parkinson question Ryan’s career choice and draw attention to the actor’s discomfort with being interviewed.

“You’re wary of me, you’re wary of the interview, you don’t like being interviewed,” he says to Ryan, who studied journalism before becoming an actor.

“If you were me, what would you do now?” he says, to which she frostily replies: “I’d just wrap it up”.

Parkinson later said he wished he hadn’t lost his temper and had dealt with Ryan in a “more courteous manner”.